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Aryballos

Aryballoi

A small flask with a narrow neck and a broad disc-shaped mouth with a narrow aperture.

History: The earliest Protocorinthian round aryballos may be a descendent of the Mycenaean stirrup-vase. The Corinthian evolution of the aryballos can be followed clearly from the round through the ovoid to the pointed. By the end of the seventh century, the shape had been standardized and a new round form was the convention until the fifth century B.C.

The Corinthian version has a round body and generally one handle reaching from the shoulder to the edge of the flattened disc-shaped lip. This shape is rare in Athens, and a fine example of this spherical aryballos carries the signature of Nearchos. The Attic potters develop a different type of aryballos in the last quarter of the sixth century with a bell-shaped mouth, much like that of the later lekythos, and normally two handles reaching from the shoulder to the edge of the lip. In later examples there are no handles. Sometimes rather than having a spherical body, there is a flat bottom. This vessel is often shown in Attic vase painting as being suspended from the wrist of an athlete, or looped by a string and hung on the wall.

Aristoph. Kn. 1094: used to describe a vase from which Athena pours ambrosia on the head of Demos.